by Joshua Braff
“Consistency,” he says. “Tell me if I’m wrong, Doctor. Being there. Being home when they’re home. This is motherhood.”
“You, Abram? You want consistency for your children?” She lets out an incredulous chuckle. “Is that what you said? Consistency?”
He stares at her and tries to control his jaw. “Are you cute now? A little act? He tells you you’re witty, doesn’t he? He tells you you’re cute? Before he makes you stay after class and—”
“Don’t!”
There’s a blip of silence before she turns to face me. Our eyes meet briefly and she looks away, out her window—wanting to stop the flood. “Jacob,” she says, as if reminding him I’m there.
“Yes?”
“How does it feel right now, honey?” I look down at my cast and then up at her. She rests her head against the back of the seat and her curly brown hair is flattened. How does it feel? How does it feel to be here, is what she means. Stuck back here, in earshot of this ugly privacy. How does that feel? How does that feel, Jacob? To be so lucky.
My father flips the radio on and turns it right off. He shakes his head a few times and leans into her ear. “Do you know you have a six-year-old boy?”
“Stop it.”
“Just answer me.”
“We both do.”
“But I work,” he says. “I make a living, remember? Remember?”
“And I raised babies.”
“You’re not done yet.”
“I never said I was.”
“I’d take over for ya, Claire, but what would we eat? Where would we live? I never signed up to be a housewife. Did I? It wasn’t my role.”
“I did it for years and I still do it.”
“When? How? How could you still do it?”
“Every second I’m home.”
“It’s not the way we discussed it.”
“Discussed it . . . when?”
“In Rockridge. I know where we were sitting, what we were eating. Asher was a baby. Early November of 1964.”
“Nineteen sixty-four? We had a conversation in 1964?”
“So that makes it less valid? Because you say sixty-four as if it was . . . the turn of the century?”
She looks down at her hands, her head shaking. “I’ve never stopped you from growing,” she says. “Never.”
He pokes himself in the chest. “I kept my part of the deal. You didn’t. Tuna casserole in the kitchen in Rockridge and you said you wanted four kids, and it was you Claire, you, who said you’d—”
“So I grew.”
“You’re their mother!”
“And I’m still their mother.”
“Are you? Are you?”
I see her head dip forward, down into tears. I see a hop in her shoulders. “How dare you ask me that,” she says. “My son can hear you.”
My father blinks and sits taller in his seat. He looks at me through the rearview and then back at the road ahead. The speedometer finally climbs as we curl through the S curves and no one says a word until we reach Westlock Drive. I stare down at the still hardening plaster that warms my swollen hand, and gently flutter my fingers, chalky and stiff.
“How does it . . . feel?” my father says, trying to see me again in the rearview.
I ignore him as long as I can. Until he finds me in the mirror.
“Feels numb.”
He nods and pushes in the eight-track. Itzhak Perlman at Carnegie Hall. “Well,” he says, exhaling a long sigh. “That has to be better than pain.”
As we pull in the driveway and park, my father says that he and my mother will be staying in the car for a few more minutes. He asks if I’d give them some time alone. My mother cranes her neck to see me and pushes out a smothered grin I know well. “I’ll be there in a second,” she says softly. “I’ll be there real soon.”
ASHER’S IN THE hallway when I get upstairs. He’s wearing torn jeans and a Squeaky Fromm T-shirt, and his long hair sprouts like a fountain from the center of his head. He wants to know why I’m home, who brought me here, and what the fuck happened to my hand. I ignore the asshole tone and try to walk past him. He stops me with his chest. “Did you hear me?” he says.
“Move.”
“What the hell happened?”
“Get out of my way!” I say, without facing him, and a softer and surprisingly gentler person lifts my chin with his thumb. “You all right?”
I slowly nod.
“Good. Now what the fuck happened to your hand?”
“I fell, okay? Get off me now?” I walk past him into my room and slam the door. In seconds he’s there again, sighing with impatience, his arms now folded. Squeaky Fromm is winking at me, a close-up of her pink and freckled face. I stare at her instead of him and try to suppress a strange and sudden need to cry. Asher cringes with more empathy and moves to touch me but stops. “What the hell happened, man?”
“I was playing around and I . . . punched it.”
“What? I can’t even hear you.”
“I punched a waaaall,” I yell. “Happy now? You got what ya want, now go, leave me alone.” I lay facedown on my bed and feel the tears roll off my lips and into the fabric of my pillow. I hear Asher coming closer, and soon he’s sitting there, his body next to mine.
“Shhh, it’s okay,” he says. “It’s okay, man.”
I shake my head, and turn to face the other wall. “Bullshit. You’re wrong. It’s not. She’s not—”
“Who? Who’s she?”
“Mom.”
“She’s not what?”
I take a deep breath and let my eyelids gently close. “Staying. Here. With him.”
Asher waits a few seconds before he slowly stands. He walks to the window and looks down at the car in the driveway. I watch him from the bed as he leans and rests his forehead against the glass, and in the silence that follows I listen for the car doors to open. She’s telling him now. That’s what’s taking so long. When should we tell the kids, Abram? How shall we split them? I’ll take Dara and Gabe, she says, jotting it down on her palm. You take the boys. Fuck you! he screams, and I hear it rattle in my thoughts. When I open my eyes my brother is back. He reaches to touch my swollen fingers like someone new to affection. His thumb just rests on mine at first, barely there, as if uncertain to give too much. And when he lifts my whole hand into his and holds it, I am safe somehow in the foreign tenderness of his touch. I try not to move, to not scare him away, and look down at my cast when his eyes meet mine. “If this ends,” he whispers, “I’ll be here for you. I won’t leave you.”
We hear a siren in the distance and we both face the window. We listen to it fade.
“I’m gonna get into an art school in Rhode Island, J. My guidance counselor says it’s the best. They call it RISD. He says if I try hard I could get a scholarship. Do you know what that means?”
I say nothing.
“It means I’m not going to need him anymore. I’m not going to need him ever again. All I need is the grades and the diploma, and we could leave here. Ya hear me? No more of this.” He looks down at our hands and then back up to me. “But we got to play ball for now, ya know? Wait it out. Please him. ’Cause I need some time,” he says. “I need more time.”
I glance up at him.
He kneels to touch my fingers to his cheek, and holds them there for a long second. “I gotta go,” he says. And quickly stands to leave.
I blink once and my eyelids burn and stay glued to my face, closed. Rhode Island. Rhode . . . Island. Just me and my brother. I’m fading and can taste the liquid drugs in my veins, pouring into my wrist and palm, the very tips of my nerves. How shall we split them, she says, and I drift away into this blissful and airy space, somewhere between the truth and sleep.
I’ve been away for years when I wake again. The sun has gone down, just blackness out my windows. I hear footsteps outside my door and see a light from the hallway. Someone knocks lightly and enters my room. When I hold my head up I hear, “No, no, lay back down.” It’s
Megan. She walks over to my bed and sits on the edge. “I just got back from school,” she says softly. “You okay?”
I take a deep breath and let my eyelids close. “I broke my wrist.”
“I know, poor baby. What happened?”
“I punchdawall,” I whisper.
“You what?”
I open my eyes. “Uneven. Uneven.”
I feel Megan’s hand lifting the back of my T-shirt. She scratches in long, feather-light strokes, up and down my spine. “Oh.”
“Relax,” she says and pulls the shirt higher. “Just let me touch you.”
An erection seems untimely and impolite. My body has no tact, no choice. Just this pumping flow of gasoline from some unseen vat.
“We’ll talk tomorrow,” she says, and pulls my shirt down. When she stands from the bed I can see her body lean over me. I feel her long black hair against my cheek and then her breasts against my chest. She puts her mouth against mine and kisses my lips. One Mississippi, two Mississippi. I lift my left hand to touch her face but she stops before I reach her. As she stands in the dark my palm brushes her thigh.
“Good night,” she says, walking away from the bed.
“Good night.”
I stare at the ceiling, awake. I move my left hand down my stomach and hold myself in the grip of this naughty fog. It is not a touch I know. This lefty with no name. But she is real, she is, I feel her. And tonight, I’ll call her . . . love.
Just let me touch you. Just let me touch you.
Dear Sid and Adina Weintraub,
Sorry this is late. Thank you for coming to my Bar Mitzvah and for your generus gifts. No one has ever given me a sweater and snow hat and mittens with the Israeli flag embroidered into them. I love the socks too. I will think of both of you when I wear them places like Hebrew school and other Jewish places too. I hope to see both of you somewhere in the future but it’s likely I’ll be moving to Rhode Island with my brother some day and will never think of or see you again.
Sincerely,
Jacob
Dear Effie and Mel Greenstein,
I’m so sorry this card is late. It’s been two and a half weeks since the incident regarding the uneven bars. I hope you understand that my writing hand was injured in the aforementioned uneven bar incident and that this fact caused the lateness regarding this tardy note. I really like the generous gift you gave me for my Bar Mitzvah. I had no idea that they made bookends out of Jerusalem stone. With the help of my brother and my friend Jon we were able to hoist them up on my bookshelf yesterday. They looked really great up there before my shelving collapsed into a cloud of snapped particleboard. No one was hurt. I think I’m going to keep them on the floor. Thank you very much again. You both rock, Effie and Mel. Get it?
Sincerely,
Jacob
Dear Jack and Bella Weingarden,
I’m so sorry this card is late. My father told me that he called you last week to apologize for my tardy thank-you notes. He is sitting here with me as I write. He wants me to apologize once again and to remind you that parking will be tight the night of the Annie Hall party. He says to tell you that it’s okay to park on the lawn to the left of the driveway, but to be careful not to hit the Sinkovitz’s porch or mailbox. He also says to arrive on time because just before the movie starts, the cast of the Leiland Community Theater’s production of Annie Get Your Gun will be performing in our living room. If you didn’t already know, my dad is in this chorus.
Thank you for the generous Israel Bonds and thank you, Jack, for resharing that detailed story about my bris during dessert.
Sincerely,
Jacob
Dear Morris and Dora Bitterman,
Sorry this card is late. My father told me that he called you last week to apologize for my tardy thank-you notes. He is not sitting here right now as I write this and I am so very happy about it. I might be a retard but when he’s standing over me, watching every stroke of my pen, I become a much more substantial retard. I love that I can write anything I want right now and he’s not here to see it. For example: Ass. Fuck. Fist. Shit. Boink. Dick. Fiddle-fart. Titties. Etc. Rhode Island, Rhode Island, Rhode Island, I’ll soon leave here and live on an island. I can write that Megan takes her bras off in front of me now. I don’t know if you know her or not. She lives in our attic and eats dinner with me. We’ve been doing a lot of back scratching up in her room and I’m getting used to seeing the raised and pinkish part on each of her breasts. My friend Jon says that this area is called the ariolla. The other day she sat up with her bra off and it didn’t seem to bother her that I was sitting there, two inches away, pretending not to care that her nudity was so close to me. I try not to stare at her chest when she sits up to light her cigarettes. But as it turns out I’m a great deal interested in nakedness and the beauty of girls and that raised and pinkish part of the female ariolla. Lately, after I go down to my room and my boner (slang for “erect penis”) deflates, I’ve been seeing something wet in my underwear that I don’t think is pee. I think it’s what they call sperm. In the sixth grade a classmate named David Barnett told me we only have a million of them to spend so we should be careful with every drop. I’ve got to tell you, Morris and Dora, I’m a little concerned. I have no way of knowing how many sperms I have left in my testicles.
Thank you so much for the dartboard and for the darts. Asher likes to hang pictures of people he despises on it. He then hurls the darts from very close range with a running start. He completely ruined my Hall and Oates album cover. The record just sits in its paper sleeve now. Thanks again. See you at the Annie party.
Sincerely,
Jacob
Dear Abe and Judith Frazenberg,
I told Megan about Rhode Island the other night and how nice it would be if she’d visit. She says it’s not really an island but to call when I get there. We were spooning at the time. This means that I lay behind her with my body against hers and we curl our knees up and watch sitcoms. For the first few times we did it I wore my jeans under her sheets but when she changed into sweatpants I decided to do the same. Each time since then I’ve felt a little worried that she’d feel my erect skin-flute (slang for “penis”) against her body. The way I lay behind her leaves nowhere for it to go except pressed up against the crack of her butt. I don’t really know the words to describe how good this feels. I’ve never felt anything like it before. The more we do this together, the more I realize that she probably does feel me against her. But she doesn’t say anything or seem to mind. She just watches TV and lets her whole body jiggle when she laughs at the jokes. It feels good when she laughs. At times our feet touch or her hair gets in my mouth or I feel her fingernails against my forearm and I pretend that’s she’s my girlfriend. But I don’t think she likes me like that. I just think she sees me as someone who’s alone a lot. And she is too. Ever since she heard my father in my room she’s been telling me I’m handsome and smart and that the girls will always like me because I know how to listen. She also says she loves my blond hair and that I’m funnier than my dad will ever be. I think she only says these things because she thinks I need to hear them. But she’s wrong. I don’t like sympathy. I want her to like me for me and not because she thinks no one else does. I want her to wake up in the morning like I do and think of her face and her mouth and the way her arm sometimes drapes over me during sitcoms. I’d also like to press my penis against her without any clothes on.
Thank you so much for the Johnny Bench Pitch-Back. Asher threw a bowling ball at it yesterday and it crumbled into a heap of orange aluminum and tangled netting. He says he can fix it. My father told me to ask if you have any extra folding chairs you could bring to the Annie Hall/Annie Get Your Gun party on the fifth. If not, do you have any large floor pillows? See you then.
Sincerely,
Jacob
Dear Aunt Gert,
Last night with Megan was different. We got into the spoon thing again during M*A*S*H but this time I started to move my hips in a diff
erent way than I have before. I wasn’t sure if she felt me doing this but soon I was sort of grinding without thinking and began to feel a dizzying and sexual flutter in my testicles and ribs. It was like a risky and swirling dream, Aunt Gert. A rush that rose from my stomach to my shoulders and on through the nerves in my face. I noticed that if I raised my pelvis in tiny increments, higher and higher up her back I began to lose control of the nerves in my eye sockets. And just as Megan let out a laugh at the TV my eyes squeezed closed as if light was pouring in on them, and I felt a great and flowing squirt from the tip of my Johnson (slang for “penis”). My whole body stiffened and shivered and my toes and fingers clenched up tight with spasm. And when I opened my eyes I saw something I’d never seen in my life. Sperm, Aunt Gert. About a liter I’d guess. White and sticky and all over the back of Megan’s gray sweatpants. It must have come out of my penis when my eyes were shut. She sat up at just that moment. I didn’t move, still unsure of what I’d done, so shocked at how much came shooting out of me. I watched her reach her hand around and slowly put her fingertips in it. When she turned to look at her hand, her fingers were webbed. She didn’t look at me at first when she got off of the bed. But when she stood up she gave me sort of a half smile and said, “Whoops. I think I’ll take a shower.” I went down to my room after she went into the bathroom. I curled up into my own spoon and wished to God it hadn’t happened. I wish to God I was already in Rhode Island. Humiliation, Aunt Gert. I had no idea. How am I going to look at her?
Thank you so much for the stationery with my name in bubble letters, and for the book Jews Say the Funniest Things. My father suggests you take a cab to the party tomorrow. He’s very tense right now about the parking issue, the dance number, the projector, the food supply, the amount of chairs, the number of people coming, what we’re all wearing, cleaning the house, my mother’s “attitude,” Gabriel’s speech, and whether people will enjoy themselves enough to call and thank him the day after. It’s gonna be great. See you tomorrow.
Love,
J
Show Business
My father’s been wearing his makeup and costume for two and a half hours. His oversized overalls are a worn-down denim and have a polka-dot patch sewn into the seat. There’s also a blue and white bandanna around his neck and a piece of fake straw behind his right ear. As some very early guests begin to arrive he asks me to gather the family into the kitchen. I can’t find Gabe or Asher and I’m way too embarrassed to knock on Megan’s door. I decide to just get Dara to do it but then I can’t find her either. My mom says she’s in the backyard cleaning off the lawn furniture for my dad. When I look out the kitchen window I see her on Asher’s shoulders, laughing her ass off as he races around the patio. She bear-hugs his head for dear life as he jumps up on the lawn furniture and starts pogo jumping with his arms out like a plummeting airplane. I can hear her scream through the window as Asher tumbles onto the lawn and begins tickling her armpits like a madman. My sister’s going to pee any second—I’ve seen this before. “Jacob!” my father says behind me. “Where is everyone? It’s five twenty.”
